Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Fuck this shit,” Hendricks said. He pushed out from under Duncan’s body and surged ahead, readying his sword to make a big lunge. If he could just sink it in before the fire sloth realized … “He may be big, but he’s going to get the fucking air let out of him like any other motherfucking one of you sons of bi—”

  The fire sloth snapped around as Hendricks was three steps into his run, and as he saw the glow rising in the demon’s mouth, he knew for a fact he wasn’t going to make it anywhere near where he could plunge a sword into it before it burned him into a little pile of ashes.

  *

  Erin shot past two parked cars just up from Whistling Pines—Poons, now she was thinking of it, goddamn Benny all to hell—and watched the cars roll back onto the road after she passed, a couple members of the watch waiting for reinforcements before charging in.

  That was smart, but it annoyed the fuck out of her right now.

  She turned the corner into the development and damned near sideswiped a pallet of bricks, tires squealing as she came around in a hurry to avoid smashing it. “Whoa,” Guthrie said mildly at the sudden movement, “let’s not have a repeat of last time.”

  “There’s no cliff this time,” Erin said tightly. “At worst, I’d roll this bitch, and we’d climb out. Unless you cracked up again, which, if you did—I mean, that’s kinda on your weaksauce ass.”

  “What are you saying here?” Guthrie asked. “You calling my new shell like … a pussy shell?”

  “Well, it does have one,” Erin said. She still wasn’t smiling, because it wasn’t that funny.

  “Heh.” That was the sort of shit Guthrie would find funny, naturally. “Oh, fuck.”

  The fire ahead, though? That wasn’t the shit Erin found funny, nor Guthrie either, apparently. It was streaming into the air, a five-alarm blaze if they’d had five fire departments in the area to respond. Black smoke was already clouding up the sky on the right side of the street, and Erin eased the car up against the curb, drawing her bat as she got out.

  “Don’t go charging in like a Marine with a black coat,” Guthrie said, getting out her side. “I was serious about these fire sloths. They breathe hellfire.”

  “Looks like regular, ordinary fire to me,” Erin said, holding the bat up as she got up on the weed-strewn dirt stretch where a lawn would probably have gone in better times. “What’s the difference?”

  “This fire comes from hell.”

  “Nice fucking answer, asshole.”

  Guthrie shrugged expansively, baton bouncing in her hand as she held it. “I don’t know what else to say. Hellfire is different than regular fire because it comes from hell. Water doesn’t exactly put it out; it just kind of mutes the heat. You’ve seen it before.”

  Erin tried to think back past a cavalcade of demons these last couple months. “I have?”

  “Yeah. That squashed turd, Gideon the serial masturbator, he was breathing it,” Guthrie said.

  “Squashed—?” Erin started to say, and a bellow of fire blew high in the air, coming from behind one of the burning house frames, like something had started up an oil rig fire back there. It stank, too, like sulfur and an old truck stop bathroom combined.

  “I think we found the problem,” Guthrie said as a couple other watch members hit the ground next to them, jumping up onto the weed-strewn grass. Erin gave ’em glance; it was Nate McMinn, Keith Drumlin, Bart Creasy—a local well driller—and bartender Mike McInness, his SM Lines ball cap pulled down over his eyes and a baseball bat of his own in hand.

  “I think a blind fucking monk could find that problem,” McInness cracked as he stopped his ass with the rest of them. No one seemed eager to charge into this, and Erin couldn’t blame them. Three houses were already on fire, and whatever the hell was doing it sounded pretty pissed. They’d have to go sashaying down between the burning houses, hoping the black smoke pouring out of the foundations wouldn’t blind them all to whatever might be waiting down there.

  Another bellow cut through the air and everyone was just lingering there on the front lawn. Shit, Erin thought, if no one else is going to do this, I guess I’ll—

  Reeve came bounding up just then, his car squealing to a stop in the street. “What the fuck are y’all sitting around here gawking for?” He stormed up into the dead yard with his sword, Mary Wrightson a step behind, still brandishing her sawed-off double-barrel—like that would do a fucking thing against a demon—and he charged on down ahead of them, leaving them all in the damned dust. A second later, he’d been swallowed up by the black smoke like a pebble dropped in a lake.

  “Well, shit, I ain’t gonna sit back here and do nothing while there’s fighting going on,” Nate McMinn said, and off he went down the hill too. Keith Drumlin and Bart Creasy followed, bellowing out their own cries that got lost in whatever the fire sloth was howling about past the smoke and flames.

  “Watch all these dumb menfolk go running into trouble without a thought in their damned heads,” Mary Wrightson said, walking with a little bit of a hitch in her step. “Me, I’m gonna take my time and try not to go sprinting headlong into something that’ll rip it off.” And off she went down the hill, a little bit of a waddle to her stride accented by the uneven slope she was navigating.

  “You hanging back for a reason other than unmitigated sanity?” Guthrie asked, sidling closer.

  “I was gonna suggest we charge too,” Erin said, “right before Reeve said it.”

  “He steal your thunder?” Guthrie made a face. “Boo hoo.”

  “Fuck off,” Erin said, and off she went, down the hill, bat in hand. It didn’t take more than a few steps before she couldn’t see a damned thing through the smoke.

  *

  Aaron Drake was ready for his next culinary experiment, and his regrets for what he was missing in the realm of human veal were hardly staunching his appetite. His movements of late had been unlucky: a string of houses that failed to yield even a single child, as though the people of this sunny, hell-blighted hamlet had done what the Londoners in World War II had done and sent their children away to be raised by others. He knew this was not so, that he had just chosen poorly in his recent string of attacks, but still, it rankled him to be confined to culinary experimentation with only adult meat, when his palate cried out for more tender, refined options to enhance his table.

  Still, there was meat in hand, and that was better than where he’d been before all this, trapped in this burg with little to show for it in the way of creative dining options save for these insipid little diners and roadside chain restaurants.

  Meat, he had, and plenty of it. The basement was filled with fresh possibilities, some live, most dead, and enough that he would be sated, belly full for the next few days. Three houses, six cattle—people were his cattle—of which the youngest was probably in their twenties and the oldest … well, it didn’t bear thinking about the grey-haired ones he’d dragged in. They were dead anyway, and he was letting them age a little further now that they were cleaned.

  The youngest of them was a man of his twenties who had been living in his parents’ home. Drake had been so excited to stumble upon him when he’d found him, but the ecstasy turned to disappointment in such a brief flicker of time; this one was an adult like the others, in form if not in maturity. A full-grown bird that simply hadn’t left the nest yet, not tender and succulent yearling. It was like ashes in the mouth, this disappointment.

  Still, it was better than nothing, Drake thought as he stared down at the boy—young man, he supposed. The cutlet waiting to be transformed, the dish nearly ready for serving. The ingredient.

  “Please,” the protein said, adopting a tone of begging, as though that might help. “Please—”

  Drake just frowned, his shell contorting in the manner necessary to evince this subtle emotion. “You must be joking.” Why was he dignifying it by speaking to it? Butchers occasionally talked to their cows, he supposed. He reached down and seized this creature by the neck, lifting it up. It wasn’
t difficult; the protein was neatly bound, hand and foot. It had had a ball gag shoved in its mouth until Drake had removed it, casting it aside on the cold, stone basement floor before the watching, squealing eyes of the surviving three … cutlets. Cuts. No. Sides of meat? He struggled with proper nomenclature with these things, having never done the butchery himself. Farm-to-table was new to him, but thus far he’d been eminently pleased with the results.

  “What are you doing?” it squealed as he lifted it, almost dragging it along as it failed to cooperate fully. It was probably trying to keep up, he realized vaguely, and he gave it a moment to regain its footing. It did so, and he led it up the stairs as the floorboards creaked ominously beneath them. Did it know that it was marching to its own doom? Surely not. He hadn’t slaughtered the old ones in front of these ones, so any cues it might have picked up on would have to have been subtle, like when he brought the steaks back down to the basement, properly seasoned, to begin their dry aging.

  “Taking you upstairs,” Drake replied with ease, going slower now. Yes, that was the ticket. It had no idea it was being led to the slaughter. Best not to agitate it now.

  “And then?”

  “Why, releasing you, of course.” Drake had made an error here, and he saw it now. It was a small one, but still, an error. He’d removed the ball gag in anticipation of placing an apple in the mouth of this roast, but he’d left the apple upstairs. That meant, theoretically, it could scream loud enough that someone might hear it in one of the neighboring houses before he could get the apple properly placed. That would be unfortunate. Probably for them rather than him, but still … unfortunate.

  “Really?” it asked, dull as dirt. How stupid could it be? Drake led it upstairs, into the kitchen.

  “Absolutely,” Drake said, walking past the kitchen island, strewn with spices and rubs that he’d prepared. He picked up the apple as he passed, dropping it in a bowl of the rub. He glanced at the protein; it was naked, of course, and ready, save for the apple and … one other trifle. “Come with me.” And he continued to lead it by the rope around its neck toward the door to the back yard of his rental house.

  The fire was crackling out in the backyard, faint smoke rising up into the midday sky as Drake led it, hand on the rope, rough twine against the surface of his shell. He didn’t drag it along; he took his time and then stopped when they reached the fire, looking back. Drake took no malicious joy in the roast looking over the two heavy iron forks placed on either side of the fire, the spit just waiting, leaned against a picnic table.

  “What is th—” it got out before Drake shoved the apple in his waiting mouth and then slapped it in the back of the head, killing it instantly, like one of those pneumatic spikes that farmers used. It dropped, plastering its face in the dirt.

  “Oh, good,” Drake said mildly, and rolled it face up. He took a few minutes to dress it right there, cutting out the guts from the esophagus to the anal sphincter, tying them off and tossing all the waste in another waiting pail, where it slopped, stink filling the air.

  He strung the body up and let it drain as he coated it thickly with a honey and barbecue marinade, then dusted it with a lovely, salty and spiced rub. It had a tang to it, one that he was sure was going to taste truly excellent once the fire crystallized the honey with the rub in it.

  Drake took a lick of the marinade and rub, and … mmm. Yes, this was going to be good.

  He fetched the spit. It took a few minutes to position the roast correctly, binding its limp arms tightly to the pole, then the feet. Once he’d finally strung it properly, dead, waxy hands bleeding where he’d opened some wounds to let it drain while it cooked, he draped the carcass over the fire, and set the spit to turning on its own, electrical motor at the far end guiding it as it rolled the carcass over the open flames.

  Drake, for his part, just sat back and watched it go. The flesh began to cook, and he seasoned it here and there, throwing a little extra rub and marinade on as needed. Fire didn’t bother him so much, after all. He rubbed it into the flesh, taking care to spread out the coals so as to avoid scorching the skin. The best part of the searing would come late in the cooking process, once it had a chance to roast properly and all that marinade carmelized on the skin, turning it into a sweet, crackling treat that would soak into the meat.

  All that done, Drake just let the spit turn, the roast cooking on its own. It turned, eyes wide and dead, staring off in different directions. Drake stared into them for a few seconds, blue irises finding his on every rotation, staring back with every turn.

  He wondered how they’d taste. Probably not well, but he’d try them anyway.

  Before long, he’d have to put some vegetables on. He had corn and potatoes, figuring he’d turn this into his own version of a real Southern barbecue. And he even had a Southerner to barbecue. He chuckled about that as he went to check his spices for the vegetable prep. This was going to be a sumptuous meal.

  *

  “NO!” Arch leapt up in a hurry, seeing his chance. Hendricks was about to become barbecue, deep fried without the batter, and he couldn’t, in good conscience, just let the man die.

  Especially when he could do it himself.

  Arch threw himself in front of the fire sloth, shoving Hendricks aside. His hand slipped on the cowboy’s coat, the cumulative sweat from hiding in the dust under Duncan’s weight coating his palms. The smell of the greenery burning around them as the fire sloth put the torch to the woods disappeared as it, instead, engulfed Arch—

  His clothing flared up, singed from his chest and back. The sword in his hand should have melted, shouldn’t it? But it didn’t, instead remaining cool to the touch within his grasp.

  Arch blinked, flames shrouding his vision, billowing into his eyes. Shouldn’t he be … burning? Like his shirt.

  His pants were on fire too, but he didn’t feel a bit of it.

  “Oh,” Arch said after a moment, and then, a little more crossly as the flames covering him completely, “son of a gun.”

  *

  When Reeve came down the hill, emerging from the black cloud of smoke, he did it in time to see something he damned sure never thought he’d see—a sloth breathing fire at Arch Stan, a full frontal barbecue of the big deputy.

  Arch was just standing there, hands spread wide in front of him as the fire consumed his shirt and left him bare-chested, then started to work on his pants …

  And didn’t seem to do a damned thing to the rest of him.

  “What in the pig’s ass of hell fuck is this?” Mary Wrightson cursed as she ambled out behind him between the burning houses and burning woods.

  “It’s a sloth the size of a VW van,” Bart Creasy said, looking cockeyed at the fire sloth as it breathed, well, fire at Arch Stan. In fairness, though, Bart Creasy looked at everything cockeyed; his left eye was perpetually squinted thanks to some sort of accident from his youth that Reeve couldn’t recall the details of.

  “What did you think fire sloth meant?” Reeve asked, trying to regain his composure as he watched his deputy burn to death, because that damned sure had to be coming. People didn’t just sit in the middle of flames, unburnt. Or at least they didn’t used to.

  “Look at this guy, always showing off how impervious he is to hellfire,” Guthrie said as she and Erin emerged onto the field of battle as Reeve started forward, raising his sword.

  The fire sloth whipped its head around at his motion and out streamed a long breath of lipping flame that Reeve was forced to dodge. As he did so, he noticed a long series of streaks along the fire sloth’s flank, like claw marks against its side.

  Putting that out of his mind, Reeve scrambled sideways as he watched Arch mutter something from within a whirlwind of flames that seemed to swirl around him. The big deputy was not charring, not turning into ash; he was just scowling at the huge demon—albeit nakedly, now that his clothes had burned off.

  “Oh, my,” Mary Wrightson said from behind him. “Is it warm out here? Why, yes, yes it is. Also,
Archibald Stan is standing there nekkid as a jaybird and fit as a fiddle. It’s a damned good thing my cardiologist checked me out a couple weeks ago, I’m thinking, because otherwise I’d say I was experiencing a palpitation here.”

  “It’s a demon the size of a minibus, and you’re getting fired up because of the deputy’s junk?” Guthrie asked. “I mean, I see it too, and it’s good and all, but … seriously, I think you humans are fucked up.”

  Flames whirled and swirled around the fire sloth, and Arch stepped up to it, out of his flames, keeping his attention squarely on the thing, and as it brought a clawed hand around to swipe at him—

  Arch just swung his sword. The paw and the blade made contact in front of both of them, and for a brief moment there was almost a silence, save for the crackling flames.

  Then a hissing noise rushed over them, and the smell of sulfur came rolling out hard enough to make Reeve feel like he was going to gag up all those Tylenols and ibuprofens he’d wolfed down that morning. The fire sloth stretched and went black, and a couple seconds later it was gone, pulled back into hell where it belonged.

  “Well, now that that’s over with …” Mary Wrightson said, “we can admire Mr. Stan’s fine musculature and even finer tallywhacker, can’t we?”

  “You’re old enough to be his grandmother,” Reeve commented with all the patience God had given a parent with three jobs and four sick kids: none.

  “I’m old but I ain’t dead,” Mary cackled, as some more folks straggled their way out of the sweltering black clouds. One of the frame houses collapsed behind them, turning everybody’s head.

  “Why’s everybody just standing around, watching things burn?” Barney Jones asked, loping along with Braeden Tarley beside him. Tarley had a tense scowl, like he expected something to launch out of the burning woods.

  “Because nobody’s got a fire engine down the front of their pants,” Hendricks quipped.

  “That’s cuz Arch ain’t got no pants to hide it down,” Mary said, still grinning. “But he’s got a—”